New Blue Suit
by ann no aku
Summary: The Doctor buys a new blue suit after his metacrisis steals his. Takes place before Music of the Spheres missing scene . Rose/Ten Rated T for language.


**New Blue Suit**

ann no aku

**Plot: **The Doctor buys a new blue suit after his metacrisis steals his. Takes place before _Music of the Spheres_ (missing scene). Rose/Ten

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Doctor Who or any characters from The Catherine Tate Show.

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He lost his suit. That was his second favorite! And now he only had one suit that this regeneration enjoyed wearing—the brown one with the blue stripes.

Without much thought, the Doctor cranked up the engine of the TARDIS, pulled a lever, and appropriately toppled over as the ship lurched wildly through space and time to acquire a new suit. He had set the controls to random, allowing the ship to decide the perfect place. Once it stopped spinning, he picked himself up off the floor and exited into the next unknown.

Perhaps if he would have checked the readings before leaving, he would have known that he didn't need to bring an emergency banana or a copy of the Shadow Proclamation in case he got into trouble (which he usually did). Upon stepping out the door, the Doctor was almost run over by a man on a bike.

"Oi! Watch it!" the disgruntled rider called over his shoulder.

London. The Doctor was back in London. Was there no escaping the place? And, judging by the cleaner taste to the air, it was sometime before the battle at Canary Warf (all that destruction made the hair have an almost permanent metallic flavor that'd take decades to fade away).

His hearts lurched. That meant Rose was around somewhere. Yes, he just saw (and said goodbye to) her, but she was no longer his. An even more distressing thought came to mind—what if he accidentally crossed his own timeline? What if, by being here and now, he'd never meet Rose?

At a nearby café, an old woman dressed in a housecoat over a paisley gown was reading the paper. The Doctor, in a flash or brilliance, strolled right up and snatched it from her hands. "I beg your pardon!" she cried, beating him repeatedly with her heavy bag. "My grandson is inside and he'll knock the stuffin' outta ya!"

"Ah, good. Early 2005." He folded the paper and returned it to the rather irate (and somewhat shocked) old woman. "And please don't hit me. I-I really don't like violence."

She watched as he walked away, looking pleased about something. "What fackin' liberty!"

"Nan!" cried out a young man in a grey and green striped jersey carrying two steaming mugs of tea. "You need to stop saying that stuff about people!"

"Did you see 'im? Fackin' stole my newspaper! What a load of horse shit!"

"Nan, your paper is right here." He picked it up and handed it to her.

"He put it back, you see." Jamie rolled his eyes in annoyance and disbelief.

The discussion (and insults) continued as the Doctor made his way towards Henrick's department store. The odds that she would be there on this particular day at this exact time—well, he'd have to be a wizard to make it all work out in his favor. Still, that didn't stop him as he picked up a couple hundred pounds courtesy of his sonic screwdriver and entered the store with slight trepidation.

_If she is here_, he decided, _then I'll just ignore here. I'm just here for a new suit._ Yet he looked around, trying to disguise his searching gaze by scratching his temple. As he wasn't paying mind to where he was going, the Doctor bumped into a sunglasses display, sending them crashing to the floor.

"You alrigh'?"

He didn't turn around, couldn't. Not with that familiar voice ringing in his ears like a song. Instead, he crouched down and gathered a few of the glasses. "Yeah, yeah. Just clumsy ol' me."

She bent down next to him, helping clean the mess. "May I help you find somethin'?" she asked, now upright and replacing the specs in their proper hold. When he didn't reply, she continued. "Or, did you jus' wanna look around?"

"No, no." He shook his head, still unable to look at her.

"You embarrassed?" He could hear the stifled laughter in her voice. "It's only sunglasses. They didn' break or anythin'."

"I need a suit." There. He said it. And to the wrong person, too. It shouldn't be Rose helping him! He was crossing her timeline—meeting before they actually met, or something like that. Why couldn't time travel be easier?

"Alrigh'. Come with –"

"Blue," he interrupted, finally meeting her friendly gaze. "It has to be blue. And not just any old blue. No baby blues or sky blues or even rhythm and blues—wait, that's not a color. That's a type of music."

Rose giggled. "Okay. What type of blue then?" And she smiled his smile. His hearts clenched uncomfortably.

He swallowed and looked at her. His eyes unwillingly went to hers and he couldn't look away. "I want the blue from the waters of Woman Wept, the blue from the crystal waves on Catheoporia, the blue-"

"On your suit?" she finished, lightly fingering a thin stripe on his lapel. Her fingertips danced gently over his suit, almost lingering.

He couldn't resist. He didn't' care how she knew what blue, he had is Rose. A large, manic grin erupted on his face. It was as though he hadn't lost her Pete's world. There was Rose, _his_ Rose, perfect and innocent before joining Torchwood (he hadn't liked that bit, she had a gun!). "Yep!" he popped the 'p'. "This exact blue. I used to have a suit like it, you know."

"What 'appened to it?" Rose inquired, leading the way to the men's suits. Talking to him felt comfortable, right. She couldn't quite explain it, but he was unlike anyone she had ever met before. _Or will meet for tha' matter_, she thought.

"My, er, twin stole it."

She raised her eyebrows at him, a look she used to give him so often it made his hearts ache to be able to see it again. His hand longed to grab hers, to take her on a quick adventure and have her back before his former self would bound on in and whisk her away.

"It was a fantastic suit!" he cried out in response to her stare.

"An' it never occurred to you to jus' take it back, yeah?"

"Ah, I can't."

"Why not?" She shrugged, using that casual, non-chalant voice she usually when trying to act as though she didn't care.

"It's complicated."

"Jus' 'cause I work in a shop doesn' mean I can't keep up," Rose retorted.

And didn't he know it! He wanted to take her by the shoulders and tell her, "No, no! Rose Tyler, you are fantastic! Brilliant! You keep me going!" Then pull her in for a tight embrace, smell her sweet hair, and kiss her forehead. But he had to resist, and part of him wondered how much longer he could.

"He also sorta, er, stole my," the Doctor hesitated. "He's with someone important to me."

"Girlfriend?" she offered, smiling at him even though she felt an odd twinge of jealousy. "Rather ex-girlfriend?" Her tone became mockingly serious, trying to get him to grin again like he had before.

"It wasn't that simple." The Doctor pretended to be perusing the suits as mentally chastised himself for what he knew he'd do next. Yet he made no effort to try and stop himself other than a quick mental, _"Don't be stupid! She has a boyfriend!"_

However logic won as it reminded him, _"Not for long! Soon I come in and free her from her monotonous life."_

_"Eh, true."_ And his smart side lost to logic and greed.

The Doctor stole an obvious peek at her nametag, even though he didn't need it. If he hadn't wanted her to notice, he would have looked longer to ogle at her chest a bit more. "Rose, how would you like to join me for some chips?"

"Chips?" she echoed. They were her number one weakness. "Yeah, I'd like that."

"Brilliant," he grinned. "But first, the suit!"

"Right!"

"You'll have to tell me, Rose, if I look fat in it."

Handing him a blue suit with his measurements (he'd handed her a scraggly piece of paper with them written down), she doubted the skinny pretty boy could ever look fat. "Of course." She tried to maintain a professional face, but couldn't control the smile forming on her lips, especially as she watched him walk into the nearby dressing room.

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_Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed it, please leave a review!_

_~ann no aku_


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